Sous saw other demons came from the pink and purple portal. The Alpha stood in front of the medium to protect her. The snow began to go down harder. Sous looked at Abigal. "We just need you to close that portal, right?"
"Right!" The medium yelled back to Sous.
Sous nodded her head. "Alright, Imma have the demons chase me and you close the portal." Sous looked down at her sharp swords she had for hands. She knew she had little time left before the seal on the side of her neck began to lose power. Once it lost power, she'd have to wait to access another seal.
Swoosh!
Sous jumped into the air and swooped down onto the three demons that came from the portal. They slashed at her.
Cling, clank!
Their claws and her swords colliding with one another. Sous did her best to keep them distracted as she looked at Abigal. Abigal nodded her head while Sous continued to fight the demons.
The Alpha did a flip backwards, teasing the demons as they began to follow her. Chasing her in the deep snow of the outskirts of the city.
The snow fell heavily onto Sous's blonde hair, turning moist. She was running quickly towards the foliage and deep forest. She looked behind her to see the demons chasing her. She smiled as she continued to run. She looked at Abigal who was running towards the portal. Sous turned her head forward and kept running towards the area, trying to think of a plan as she did.
Sous hid behind a tree to catch her breath. She leaned against the tree and looked behind her. The demons were approaching quickly. Sous thought for a moment and looked at her swords. She hid behind the tree and waited for the demons to get closer. She jumped out and swung her swords quickly. She sliced one of the demons in half. The demon turned into purple smoke. The other two demons growled at Sous as they approached her. Sous turned around and ran again, knowing she didn't have much time.
Tick-tok, tick-tok!
The frozen pine needles counted Sous' frantic breaths as dusk crept through the woods. Snow smothered the forest during the day, burying footprints and muffling the world. Sous lay curled beneath an overhanging root system, crusted snow clinging to her eyelashes like diamond dust.
Every muscle screamed, her swords retracted into forearms that trembled against the cold earth, the seal on her neck pulsing weakly. Purple frostbite patterns crawled up her calves where demon claws had grazed her. The silence swallowed everything except the drip-drip of melting ice from branches overhead.
"Fuck!" Sous said under her breath watching the two demons walk her way. She balled her fist, thinking of her father's power. She closed her eyes and began to breathe in and breathe out, the blue flames began to circle her fist. The particles floating toward the sky.
Once Sous and the demons were gone, Abigal ran to the portal and proceeded to close it, sticking it together, watching it disappear.
Abigal turned to look over her shoulder and saw Sous was still not by her side. She looked out into the snow, seeing nothing but whiteness, shivering. She breathed out, her breath being white.
"SOUS!" She called out, her voice echoing. She cupped her hands over her mouth. "SOUS!" She looked out toward the trees and began to follow the tracks, the snow weighting her down.
As the snow came down faster, she saw a figure emerge from the trees. Abigal stopped walking, taking a gasp. Startled by the appearance, she squinted and saw Sous walking toward her, holding two sever heads in either of her hands.
The blood dripped onto the snow as the Alpha made her way toward her.
Abigal froze, mouth agape. Sous's clothes hung in tattered strips, revealing deep gashes weeping crimson onto the frozen ground. Her blonde hair was matted with gore, plastered to her forehead and neck.
A jagged wound pulsed near the flickering seal on her throat, its light dimming erratically. The severed heads swayed limply in her grasp, ichor steaming where it met the biting air. Her eyes, usually sharp and alert, held a vacant exhaustion, staring past Abigal into the swirling white void.
The Alpha stumbled, her boots crunching heavily on the packed snow. Her shoulders sagged under an invisible weight, each step deliberate but unsteady. She dropped the grotesque trophies near Abigal's feet with a dull thud.
The heads rolled slightly, vacant eyesockets staring skyward. Sous didn't look at the medium. Instead, her gaze drifted to the faint smear on the snow where the portal had vanished, then back towards the dark line of trees, a silent question hanging heavy in the frigid air.
Abigal looked at Sous; her body covered in blood, gusts, and black seals, her own pupils were no longer blue but black, her entire sockets: black.
"Sous..."
"Yeah," she said, her teeth chattering. The blue particles still floated around her but no longer around her fist. "One down...how many more to go?"
"Eleven, we're going to the next village." Sous nodded her head, ready to follow the leader. The heads of the demons slowly dispersed into purple particles.
She blinked, the blackness receding from her eyes like ink down a drain, leaving her irises briefly colorless before settling into their usual glacial blue. The blue particles around her faded, dissolving like sugar in tea.
Snowflakes caught in her lashes melted into droplets that traced paths through the grime on her cheeks. She flexed her fingers, now that the seal had ended, leaving her palms raw and bleeding where the transformation had stressed tendons to snapping point. The seal on her neck pulsed once, a dying firefly's glow, then went dark beneath a crust of frozen blood.
Abigal moved first, shedding her own cloak to wrap around Sous's shuddering shoulders. The thick wool absorbed the worst of the wetness but couldn't mask the tremors wracking Sous's frame. With stiff fingers, Abigal pressed snow against the deepest gash on Sous's ribs, the crimson bloom slowing to a sluggish ooze. The cold bit through cloth and skin alike, a counterpoint to Sous's shallow, ragged breathing.
"Let's fine a inn to stay in for the night," she whispered to the Alpha who was exhausted.
Abigal's fingers tightened on the cloak's edge as Sous swayed, boots sinking deeper into fresh powder. Crimson droplets bloomed around their feet like morbid flowers, stark against the white.
The severed heads dissolved completely now, leaving only steaming stains and the coppery reek of ichor hanging thick in the frozen air. Sous's breath hitched, a wet, ragged sound that fogged weakly before vanishing. Her gaze remained fixed on the distant treeline, unseeing, pupils still flickering between void-black and exhausted blue.